JSF "Program Killer" Doubles Sales

June 17 (Bloomberg) -- Lockheed Martin Corp., the worlds largest defense company, may double sales of its new F-35 fighter jet in a surge of contracts that could squeeze competitors including Boeing Co. and Saab AB out of the market.The U.S. and eight partner nations already plan to buy more than 3,000 of the warplanes, and with potential exports to countries including Israel, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Finland and Spain the total could easily reach 6,000, Brigadier General David Heinz, the top Pentagon official for the F-35, said today.Boeing and Saab may come to view the Lockheed model as a program killer, said Douglas Royce, a market analyst at Forecast International in Newtown, Connecticut. The F-35 will control half the $17 billion warplane market by 2015, aviation consultants Teal Group estimate, bringing a level of dominance unmatched even by the companys F-16 and threatening to eliminate other primary manufacturers from the industry.

Update: Chink in the armor? DoD Buzz reports that a major British think tank is urging the government to kill the program.--John Noonan